Caravaggio and the 'Whitewashing' of Ethiopians in the Martyrdom of St Matthew in the Contarelli Chapel

The stories of the Apostle Matthew, according to the Roman tradition the true evangelizer of Ethiopia, will be interpreted through the analysis of hagiographic, homiletic, literary and ethnographic sources (Such as Antonino Pierozzi from Florence, Francisco Álvares, Alonso de Villegas, Pedro Ribadeneira) not considered before. This new reading aims to show how in the Martyrdom of St Matthew Caravaggio, the painter of reality, has represented some aspects of the rituality of Ethiopia, using at the same time the metaphor of the "white Ethiopian", washed and purified of the remnants of Paganism and Judaism reproached by the Catholic authorities to the Abyssinians of the "Prester John".